iFanboy Video Podcast

iFanboy – Episode #66: Understanding Comics

Show Notes

If you’re not entirely clear on how these comic books work, iFanboy
has got a show for you. Ron, Josh, and Conor delve into Scott McCloud’s
seminal work, Understanding Comics,
which is far more interesting than it might at first seem. Get a look
at McCloud’s interesting, yet academic take on what exactly a comic
book is, how it works, and why the art form is so effective and unique.
You may not have thought you needed to read this book, but you’ll be
surprised at how much you didn’t know about comics.

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Doing the podcast is fun and all, but let's be honest, listening to the 3 of us talk to each other can get repetitive, so we look to you, the iFanboy listeners to participate in the podcast! "How can I get in on the fun?" you may ask yourself, well here's how:

E-Mail us at contact@ifanboy.com with any questions, comments or anything that may be on your mind.

Please don't forget to leave your name and where you're writing from and each week, we'll pick the best e-mails to include on the podcast!

I read Understanding Comics a few years ago and it completely changed my views on reading and creating comics. I’m currently reading Making Comics and it’s really awesome too. Very inspirational and informative. I’m glad you guys covered this.

Well iFanboy, I’m slightly disappointed by this. I strongly, strongly reccommend Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner. I read Understanding Comics last semester in my Graphic Novels as Literature class, and while I agree that a lot of what in this book are worthwhile, I knew a lot of it already.

That said, the giant triangle of faces was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. But read Comics & Sequential Art by Eisner.

No offence to you guys who make the show, but I definitely wont be reading these books. They sound like they would be a great text book for aspiring comic creators or someone studying literature … but I am neither of these things.

Great show this week. I remember my literature text book in high school had a decent size excerpt from the Understanding Comics book. Unfortunately my teacher didn’t think it was very important to go over it in class. Of course that didn’t stop me from reading it.

I’m working on my bachelor-project and it’s a comparison between space, time and movement in PERSEPOLIS the comic book and PERSEPOLIS the cartoon. I’m using McCloud (and applying his claims with a much needed perceptional psycological backbone). I have about a week left, and I wanted a break from it all, so I go to Ifanboy.com for the weekly show — and what’s it about?? ….McCloud.

I’m being punished.

Anyways – great show as always. Making Comics is also a really good book going in to more detail than Understanding Comics. You should do a similar show on Will Eisners ‘Sequential Art’ as a follow-up some time, eh?